Tools
Things to actually do about it.
Seven worksheets you can fill in here, print, and put on the fridge. Each one comes from a study we have read properly, and each one says where that study stops. They are free, and nothing you write in them reaches us.
The shelf
Pick the one that matches the week you’re having.
Sorted by the same eight subjects the coach asks about in a first session, so if you know what you keep arguing about you can find the tool for it. Everything is on this page — the filter just narrows what you are looking at.
- Worksheet
The First Draft
Write the opening sentence before you have to say it — the one that names the thing without putting your partner on trial.
About 10 minOn your own
Open it → - Planner
The Repair Do-Over
Take one fight that went wrong and plan the way back into it — where it turned, what you would say now, and when you are going to say it.
About 12 minOn your own, then together
Open it → - Agreement
Two Circles
Sort the things you keep going round on into the ones that are actually negotiable and the ones that are a difference to live around.
About 20 minTogether
Open it → - Worksheet
The Doorway
Write about your own recurring argument as a neutral third party who wants the best for both of you — the writing exercise from the two-year trial, in worksheet form.
About 21 minOn your own
Open it → - Agreement
The Pause and the Return
A card the two of you write together: how either of you can stop a fight that is getting away from you, and exactly when you are coming back to it.
About 15 minTogether
Open it → - Planner
The Sunday Look
A standing twenty minutes on the money, at the same time each week, so it stops arriving as an ambush on a Wednesday night.
About 20 minTogether
Open it → - Worksheet
One Thing You Haven’t Said
Find the specific thing your partner did this week that you noticed and never mentioned, and work out how to say it so it actually lands.
About 10 minOn your own
Open it →
Every study named in these tools was checked against the publisher record before it went in, and each tool carries the limits of its own evidence on the page with the finding. The longer write-ups live in the articles, and the wider evidence base — including the paper that argues against our whole premise — is on the science page.
Not sure which of these you need? The free check-ins take three minutes and are a better place to start than picking a worksheet at random.
What these are
Three kinds of thing, and what each one asks of you.
Worksheets
You fill it in, on your own, and you leave with something written down.
Planners
You come out of it with a plan that has a time and a place on it.
Agreements
You write it together, and you both keep a copy of the same piece of paper.
Where your answers go
Nowhere. What you type into a tool is held by your own browser, on the device you are reading this on, and it is never sent to us — there is no account, no sync and no server copy, and we could not read what you wrote if we wanted to. Clearing the worksheet clears it for good.
There is exactly one exception, and it only happens if you press it: at the end of every tool you can ask for a short written note on what you have filled in. That sends your answers once, to write the note, and we do not store them, log them or attach them to you. The button says so before you press it.
Why these are free
“Take the worksheet. If it’s enough on its own, that’s a good outcome.”
— Elena, your coach
The tools do the part that fits on paper. A session is for the part that does not.
Before you start
The questions people ask first.
- Are these free?
- Yes, all of them, with no account and no card. You do not have to give us an email address to use one, and nothing you type into one is sent to us.
- Do I need my partner to do these with me?
- Three of them you do on your own, two you do together, and one you start alone and take to them. Every card says which before you open it.
- Can I print them?
- Every tool prints, either with your answers in it or as a blank sheet with ruled lines to fill in by hand. Your browser's print dialogue will also save it as a PDF.
- Is this a substitute for professional help?
- No. These are coaching worksheets, not treatment, and they assume two people who are safe with each other and stuck. If someone is frightened, or something serious has just come out, that deserves a person rather than a worksheet.
- Where does the research come from?
- Each tool names the studies behind it, links to our own write-up where we have published one, and says where the evidence runs out. Where the popular version of a practice has no study under it, the page says so rather than repeating it.
When paper isn’t enough
Do one of these live, with Elena.
Your first session is free: about fifteen minutes, on your own, no card and no account. Bring the worksheet you got stuck on.